Greg Peters: NZ Rugby League CEO on the Pacific Championship final between the Kiwis and Toa Samoa

The Pacific Championship wraps this weekend with Sunday’s decider between the Kiwis and Toa Samoa.  

The Kiwis dominated Tonga last week in front of a record 39,000 strong crowd at Eden Park, cinching their spot in the final.  

But even though the Kangaroos aren’t involved, the NRL have decided the final will be hosted in Sydney, despite efforts from the New Zealand Rugby League.  

CEO Greg Peters told Mike Hosking they would’ve loved to have hosted the whole thing in New Zealand, as the two fixtures we did host were pretty successful.  

However, he said, the NRL is the big dog in town, and they wanted content in the Australian market ahead of the World Cup, which is being hosted there next year.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Spacific Championship. This is league. The comp comes to a
conclusion Sunday, kiwis play Sama. Of course Insidney. Greg Peters
is the rugby league boss and as with us.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Greg morning, good morning, Mark, there are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Thank you. The cartoas scenario. How much is that overshadowed
the week?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh? Look, a very disturbing scenes obviously for everyone in
our sorts and prayers go out to Ellie and his family. Yeah,
it's obviously subject of a major review at the moment,
so I can't comment too much more on that at
the moment, but we just hope that he recovers quickly.
And obviously after the celebration of sports culture and music

(00:40):
last weekend that we saw at Eden Park and going
to be a fantastic occasion this weekend.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And what last weekend? That was a scene, wasn't it?
That was magical.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, I've nearly thirty years of sports administration, I've never
seen anything quite like it where crowd got behind both
teams tuning just as loud for the key reason as
they were for the for Tonga. And of course we
don't forget we've got the Jelaruse versus KIEVI fans this
weekend in the final.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
As well, which helps because why are New Zealand and
SAMA are playing at final in Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Very good question, Mike, Very good. We would love to
hosted the whole thing in New Zealand this year, but
we market and run the two fixtures in New Zealand
and you know, as you saw, they've been pretty successful
this year. However, the NRL is the big dog in
town and they own the Pacific Championships brand and they

(01:40):
want content in the market in Australia this year part
of the World Cup, which has been hosted Australia next year.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Has this helped? I mean, you know, I'm a Warriors
fan all that stuff, but and the NRL is such
a big thing that the international scene has been a
bit behind that. Has this competition helped that? In other words,
lifted the standing of international rugby.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
League, oh, without a doubt. And I think you hear
the players for us too, which is really important. You
know that they want to play for their culture, they
want to play for their country, and they want to
play more international footy and we've been arguing and advocating
for that for a number of years and we'd like
more weeks of this because really it's still only a
bit of a tack on to the end of the

(02:21):
NURL season. Huge success to it in the scenes that
we're seeing, but we want more international football.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, Go well this weekend and let's say we went.
Greg Peters with US news in a rugby league CEO.
He's up early for US insiddenly this morning. Mike, good
to see you. The Warriors sent you the merchandise pack
for the twenty twenty sixties. And yes, indeed I tried
it on yesterday. I've got the home jersey, got the
away jersey, got a college jersey, got some shorts, shorts

(02:49):
barely foot because I'm quite large in certain areas, but
we managed to get we managed to get them. I
don't Sam, that's disgusting what I was. Come on anyway,
you've got a big bum. Anyway, I tried it on
fits well, it didn't work out in it yesterday felt
very warrior esque. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to News Talks at b from six am weekdays,

(03:11):
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.